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Key Image St Laurence Church
14 Church St
BA15 1LW Bradford-on-Avon
United Kingdom
Denomination: Anglican
Congregation: Holy Trinity (Diocese of Coventry, Archdeaconry of Coventry, North Coventry)
Geogr. Coordinates: 51.347° N, 2.25382° W
Geo Location
Reference year: 700
Architectural style: Romanesque
Building type: Single-nave church
Description: Small Anglo-Saxon church without later alterations, with nave, chancel to the northeast and north porch (another porch to the south has been lost). Exterior walls structured by blind arcades.
Name derivation: From St Lawrence of Rome
Building material
  • Building stone: Ancliff Oolite (Bath limestone)
History:
Early 8th cent.:   Construction of the church (founded by St Aldhelm; nave and chancel probably original)
1001:   Reconstruction (presented to the nuns of Shaftesbury by Aethelred II as a protection against Viking raids)
About 1715:   Use as charnel house
19th cent.:   Use as a boys’ school
1856:   Rediscovery of its purpose as a church (uncovering of the angel reliefs above the chancel arch)
Important persons:
Patron:  Lawrence (?–258, deacon and martyr)
Dimensions:
Nave Height [m]:  8
Nave Span [m]:  4
Sources
Blair, John: The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 360
Geddes, Isobel: Strategic Stone Study – A Building Stone Atlas of Wiltshire, English Heritage, 2011, https://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=1622, retrieved 21/11/2017, p. 4
Higham, Nicholas J., Martin J. Ryan: The Anglo-Saxon World, Yale University Press , 2013, p. 165
Surman, Richard: Betjeman’s Best British Churches, Collins, London 2011, pp. 99–100
Wikipedia: St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Laurence's_Church,_Bradford-on-Avon, retrieved 21/11/2017
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